


The Risk-taker and the Goody-two-shoes

by katthe_loser



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alive AU, Caleb is Willies dad, Depression, Diary/Journal, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Minor Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Protective Alex Mercer (Julie and The Phantoms), Willie Backstory (Julie and The Phantoms), willie loves music a little too much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29325780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katthe_loser/pseuds/katthe_loser
Summary: After Willie screws up “for the last time”, his father decides to force Willie to hang out with the neighbor, Alex Mercer, who is a star student and, to Willie, a “goody-two-shoes” who “doesn’t take risks.”. Alex Mercer sees Willie as intimidating : “popular”, a risk-taker and no flaws (that anyone can see). They’ll soon realize, everything is not what they thought
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Kayla/Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING : Death but it isn’t described, just mentioned.
> 
> HI, I got bored and wrote this. Who knows how many chapters this will have, it’s just for fun. Please leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed, oh, and share it to people you like, hate, whatever! Thanks ~ Kat

So, Dad got the call today. The one where my school informs him about me skateboarding in the hallways and “destroying” a locker. The locker was _not_ destroyed, it just had the imprint of my knees smashed into it. Dad had a screaming fest and took away my skateboarding privileges until I “get my act together” and who knows how long that’ll take. He decided _that_ wasn’t enough and now I have to see Alex Mercer every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for “goody-two-shoes” lessons. 

Alex Mercer lives two houses down from me and never goes outside, and if he is outside he’s reading some poetry book. The day I moved in (2 years ago) he didn’t come by to welcome us to the neighborhood like everyone else had. I later found out he had been sleeping.

Look, I’m not saying he _had_ to come but it would’ve been nice. He’s the only kid that goes to Los Feliz High School that lives close to me. Because of him, I had to go to school for a month without knowing anyone, and the only reason I made friends was because of my moms passing and people felt “sorry”. 

Out of the ten friends I had,for the two months that my dead mom was relevant, 1 stayed.

Carrie Wilson. 

She’s the “mean girl” around school, so I hadn’t expected her to stay. I thought she’d be the first to leave but she proved me wrong. I taught her to skate a few months back (she’s horrible) and she hangs out at my house almost 24/7. 

Hopefully Dad doesn’t take away my Carrie privileges. .

Anyways, tomorrow I have to go over to his house, which I can only assume is child-proofed. I’m not being over dramatic, I’ve seen the trampoline in his backyard ; pillows layer on it and under it.   
  


Dad grunts, snapping me out of my loath for tomorrow. He’s wearing his silk pajamas, which either means he’s staying up to drink and cry or he’s going to watch some bad movies. No in-between. 

“Go to bed, William.” He groans, massaging his temple. His hair is messy, little hairs poking out. 

He’s going to stay up and watch bad romance movies. 

I nod, saying nothing. He didn’t deserve my response. I trudged up the stairs to the bathroom, the one next to my bedroom, and get ready for bed. I slip on my 2005 MCR Angel shirt, the angels were almost completely faded away, and brush my teeth. 

“Tomorrow’s going to be a long day,” I mumble to myself, walking to my room. 

My rooms stayed the same since we first moved in, with the exceptions of a few posters. The walls are white with blotches of paint that I had flung at the wall during a rage. Posters of different bands and skaters clutter my walls, along with family polaroids we took two months before mom died. My bed is in the corner, the sheets are dark blue, and stuffed animals take up half of it. My skateboard would usually be under my bed but Dad hid it somewhere downstairs. My easel was laid against the wall holding a canvas I hadn’t filled yet. 

I crawl into bed, flipping over a few times before passing out, getting tomorrow off my mind for as long as I could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what this is, but I enjoy writing it. Leave a kudos, please!

_Alex_

I locked myself in the bathroom after I had gotten the news. Dad had to call Luke and Reggie to convince me to come out, and that didn’t work for a _while_ ;  
  


I leaned against the locked bathroom door, running my fingers through my hair as Luke and Reggie were (horribly) trying to get me to come out. 

“It’s not that bad, ‘lex,” Luke said, chewing on something that was most likely a twinkie from the pile of them on the kitchen counter, “Willie’s cool, he isn’t like Carrie.” 

“I know that,” I groaned, “He’s all popular and skates everywhere.” 

Luke hummed, still chewing on the same bite as last time, “So, what’s the problem?” 

“Have you not seen or heard about how much chaos they cause around school? Flynn talks about it all the time in drama class! What if he gives me a major injury, or, worse, kills me?!” I gasped, continuing to run my hands through my hair, only more aggressively now.

Willie Covington has caused, at least, 10 incidents around school in the last few months, after his mom passed. He didn’t come to school a week after that. I felt bad, but I didn’t go up to him like other kids. Most left them after two months, besides Carrie. That was shocking, we all though she’d be the first to leave him since she has a reputation of bullying people, just didn’t think it was in her nature to be nice. After his mom passed and he started hanging out with Carrie more, chaos only grew more and more. 

Last week, Carrie dared them to ride his skateboard through the hallways at school, which he did with no hesitation. He ended up smashing into Reggie’s locker, now it has the imprints of Willies knees into it. Reggie wasn’t annoyed by it, his locker was near the two big wrestlers who would always find some reason to start a fight. 

Now Willie’s father, Caleb Covington, the owner of some clubs around the city, and my dad (he thinks I could go without band practice for a while because it apparently isn’t active enough) think that we’ll “fix” each other, somehow. Mr. Covington thinks I’ll be able to keep his child in check, and my parents think that Willie will get me less scared of falling or dying while doing something active. 

Reggie sighed, “Oh cmon, Alex. Isn’t Mr. Covington _paying_ you to hang out with Willie? Besides, they only ever hang out with Carrie, he needs more friends than that.”

Reggie was right, for once. Mr. Covington was paying me $40 a week to convert his kid. My mom had tried to stop Mr. Covington, but he wasn’t having it. He gave me an extra $10 on the spot when he came over a few days ago. 

I sighed, ran my hand through my hair, again, “Yeah, he is.” 

Luke took another bite out of the twinkie, crinkling the wrapper, “You’ll be fine, Alex. Besides, it’ll be fun,” He lowered his voice before continuing, “Willie knows parkour and martial arts, he can teach you.”

“There’s many pros and cons to this,” I mumbled, “What if I get hurt?” 

“Then you walk it off, and it’ll heal. You’ve been wanting to learn this stuff for a while, your parents couldn’t afford it but now, you’re getting paid to do it!”, Reggie exclaimed.

I smiled, I’ve been wanting to learn martial arts since I turned five, but my parents couldn’t afford it, that and Mom said it was the work of the devil, somehow (she never really explains why). 

“Fine,” I huffed, slowly unlocking and opening the door, “but if this goes terribly wrong, I’m taking this out on you guys.”

“Whatever you say, ‘lex,” They said in almost perfect harmony, Reggie being a second late, when I exited the bathroom.

  
So, here I was now. Laid in bed, the night before Willie comes over. Hopefully he’s excited. It’s not like I’m not, just worried. My excitement is mixed together with anxiety about tomorrow. I don’t want to get hurt, or mess something up around Willie. What if I say the wrong thing, or bring up a sensitive topic and then he tells Carrie and she attacks me? 

I exhaled, reminding myself that Willie wasn’t like that, maybe. All I know about Willie was from Flynn. She’s in the newspaper club that Carrie ran and that Willie would occasionally take over with her. And Flynn’s an observer, listener and profiler, she’d be good for the FBI. According to her, he hasn’t done anything too incriminating, besides skate in the club room, ruining the perfect stack that Flynn had piled up, but I was still worried. Hopefully I would be reassured.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter, I got back in the mood to write. Leave a kudos, comment (or share) if you enjoyed. ~ Kat


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH, Im sorry for not updating, my life has been chaotic over the last few weeks. I don’t really know when I’ll update, just whenever. Anyways, enjoy!

  
Willie

My house is old, that’s why my mom loved it so much. She said it felt like home. The windows make squeaking noises and the doors creak, it keeps me up at night, but I try to replace my annoyance with thoughts of my mom and how much she adored this house. It looks like the house she grew up in, only she repainted the bricks so it doesn’t look like an abandoned house. The wooden floors make a sort of mix between a squeak and a creak when you step on them, which means I couldn’t sneak out if I tried. And, I’ve tried. 

Like I was saying, my house isn’t quiet. I didn’t get good sleep last night, but I never do. When I awoke in the morning, I took a shower, got dressed, sweatpants and a t-shirt that I cut the bottom half off, and brushed my teeth with a tooth brush with stars I had painted on last May. By the time I had made it downstairs my dad had already left. I didn’t expect him to had stayed and give me a good morning hug, even though his shift starts at 1:00. He did, however, leave a plate of scrambled eggs on the table. The plate had poppy’s on it, my moms favorite flower. 

I didn’t eat it. I tried to, but I ended up playing around with it. And if I did eat it, I would’ve been later to school then I already was.   
  


———————

I arrived at school at 8:15, 5 of those minutes spent trying to perfect my parking in my little broken down truck. Carrie tends to ask why I don’t just ask my dad to buy me a new car, sometimes I wonder that myself. I guess I like the car, even though it breaks down a lot. And before you ask, no, it doesn’t belong to my mom. I found it when I was skating somewhere. It had a paper taped on it that said “FREE”. They probably weren’t expecting me to get it to work, but I did. Or, _I_ didn’t, it was Carrie’s half brother, Bobby. He’s friends with the goody-two-shoes and offered to fix it up for me. I said yes, after Carrie begged and begged for me to. She was concerned I would kill myself trying to fix it, which is a good call. I’m accident prone. 

When I finally got my truck inside the parking lines, I sprinted to first period, Math. I nearly face planted at least twice on my way there, but I made it without a scratch. I opened the door, that by the way was covered with posters about math from like the 5th grade, and no attention from my classmates, besides goody-two-shoes glance, was shot my way. Mrs. Campbell, my teacher, didn’t react either, I think everyone’s just used to it. 

I sat down in my seat, second closest to the window, next to Carrie. I saw her smirking from the side of my eye, but I ignored her. I almost smacked my folder down on the desk, the noise gained a few eyes my way. I took out the math worksheet, my little scribbles cluttering almost all of it so I couldn’t see what the lesson was. The little scribbles were mostly stars, my favorite thing in the world. I sighed and then tried my hardest to focus.   
  
———————————

The next few periods flew by, my worksheets only gaining little stars on them every minute. I dragged my feet as I made my way out of English class, 3rd period, and Carrie strut over to me, her brown hair shining in the sunlight. 

“Late again, I see.” She smiled, flipping her hair off her shoulders. 

“Would’ve been faster on my skate-board, but you know what happened with that.” I said in a sing-songy voice, gripping the folder in my hands tighter. 

She rolled her eyes, “You could’ve said no! I didn’t force you to.” 

I groaned, almost smacking my forehead into a locker, “You triple dog dared me! Have you never heard the rules of truth or dare?” 

“Whatever,” She muttered before her eyes lit up, “Hey, are you coming to the Dirty Candy performance?” 

Carries in this band, it’s called ‘Dirty Candy’ and she promotes it all around school. Her dad funds it, he’s a famous singer named Trevor. She’s invited me every time since she met me, she tries to distract me from my moms death a lot, and I appreciate it but she hasn’t come out with a new song in a few months so I’ve heard these songs on repeat for a while. I feel like Carrie and I relate a lot, we both lost our moms, but Carrie lost hers when she was three, but it hasn’t affected her any less, and we both have rich dads who couldn’t give a shit about us. Sure her dad funds her dad but as she says “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” 

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” I say after a minute. She smiles and rubs my hand before mumbling something about singing rehearsal and running off. 

I sigh before continuing to the cafeteria. The walls of the school are covered in “BULLY FREE ZONE” and “SUICIDE ISNT THE ANSWER” posters, along with drawings from students of the mascot (a bobcat). One of my drawings is there, the bobcat with a blue star covered shirt. He’s holding a skateboard with yellow wheels, a copy of mine. 

On my way there, I hear blasting of drums, guitar, bass and a girl singing. It sounds . . . good. The drummer plays well. I wish I could play that well, but everyone is good at something. I like to think it’s what our soul chooses, for me it’s my skateboard and for other people it’s the drums. I walked over to the room, the music room, and opened the door slightly. I know these kids, Luke Patterson, a boy with shaggy hair and never ever wears sleeves, plays the guitar and Reggie Peters, a flannel obsessed boy who is somehow passing his classes even after almost burning down the school (I was impressed), the singer is Julie Molina, another dead mom-er, she’s been trying to steal Carries spot of ruling the music class at our school, or thats what Carrie says. And the drummer, that’s

Goody-two-shoes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dang I’m bad at writing. Sorry about that-  
> Anyways, sorry Willies not his upbeat self right now, he’ll be better once he finds his skateboard. This is sort of a slow burn? So sorry about that. Anyways, leave a kudos, comment or share! Maybe all 3..? Well, thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this out on Willie’s birthday but one day later isn’t that bad! Happy Belated Birthday Willie!

  
_Alex_

The night was full of twists and turns, my anxiety not allowing me to sleep. Willie probably would end up harming me, maybe not the first day but someday. He’d slam into me with his skateboard, or suggest that I skateboard with him, which I would immediately decline. When I was younger I had fallen off my scooter and the scrapes from the cement covered my body, head to toe. That probably started the fear of falling, I’ve avoided anything similar to scootering for years, including bike riding, roller skating, and skateboarding. Even the mention of me riding one of those makes my eyes water. My parents both know that Willie skateboards, they have even suggested that I ask him to teach me and in response I stormed out of the room. I don’t know why I’m being punished for something Willie did, I’m not that good of an influence, unless they want my anxiety to wash off onto him. 

I turned over again, kicking my blanket off. I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and after a while my eyes started to shut, and I fell asleep.

———————

I awoke to the sound of my mother vacuuming in the hallway, some girl band from the 70s blasting from the living room. My mom always tries to make good first impressions, but her snobby attitude over covers her attempts. 

“Alexander!” She called, “Wake up, your father is going to leave without you at this rate!” 

I checked my alarm clock, 7:30. I still had half an hour to get ready but my mom claims that time goes faster when she’s cleaning. I don’t really know what that means but she insists it’s true. She’s given the example of when I was in first grade and she was cleaning the house and time suddenly went faster so she picked me up an hour after school had ended. It’s just an excuse that she had forgotten that Tuesday’s were early out days. 

I grudgingly got up, and dragged myself to my wardrobe. After a while of pondering over which pink shirt I would wear today, I chose the one that my mother had gotten me last Christmas. It was a plain pink t-shirt with a turtle splat in the middle. The pants I got were black ripped jeans, and that was it. 

I rushed to the bathroom and brushed my teeth with a lot of care, maybe I spent too long on that, actually. I ran down the hall and snatched my backpack off the table, but not before noticing a pile of cards next to it. 

“Mom?” I asked, picking up a card, “What are these?” 

She looked up from her vacuum, “Oh, those? I made “20 questions” for you guys.” 

The card I had read “What do you like to do in your free-time?” I guess I already knew that though, skateboarding and getting into trouble. 

“Get going! Your dad has been waiting in the car for a while, he’s going to be late.” My mom sighed, her voice hinted with annoyance.   
  
I placed the card down and hurried outside, missing my moms “Love you!” from inside. 

I slammed my dads door in the rush I made to get inside the car. He didn’t let me buckle myself in and started driving. The car ride was quiet, luckily school was nearby so I wasn’t put into this uncomfortable position for long. He dropped me off at the front of the school, and I tried to hurry up to get myself out of the car. He gave a quick hum before I exited. I waved goodbye at him, in which I think he either ignored or didn’t see, and he drove away. 

I checked the time again, 8:10. Oh god, I was so late! I ran into the school, passing students that were purposely late, and, luckily, when I entered the classroom, the teacher wasn’t there yet. I sat down in my seat, near the entrance of the classroom, and waited.   
  


————————

The teacher arrived 2 minutes after I had, which meant I had good luck, unlike Willie, who arrived at 8:15. He entered somewhat quietly, but still loud enough for me to notice. His eyes met mine for a second before he turned his attention away and focused on Carrie. His seat is right next to her’s, that was a mistake on our teachers part. They usually talk a lot throughout the class, but today they stayed silent. It was somewhat reliving. I got to focus on my classwork for once, but the room seemed silent without their mindless chatter. It seemed . . lonely. 

————————-

The class felt like it had gone on for hours, the teacher would explain the work for too long, all of us had already studied this chapter last year. Once in a while, I would turn my head to see what Willie was doing now that they weren’t causing a ruckus. He would either be fidgeting with something, like a pencil or a pink stress-ball, or scribbling something on his work. I tried to draw my attention elsewhere, but it didn’t work. I don’t know why, but he seemed so important today. It was probably my nerves of having to see him today, that had to be it. 

-———————-

The rest of my classes before lunch went by quick, it felt like only a second had passed. Julie and Luke were waiting outside of the classroom I was currently in, Science, and were talking to each other, Julie looking clearly annoyed at whatever Luke had said. They got out of class early since the period they has just been in was Drama. I’m guessing they had done so well that their teacher had rewarded them. As soon as the bell rang I ran out of the classroom, my teacher waving a goodbye. 

“That took longer then expected,” Luke sighed, running his hand through his hair, obviously trying to impress Julie with his lack of sleeves. It didn’t work, as Julie started rambling on about how Carrie had said something about her during Drama. We walked to Reggie’s classroom, Math, and waited outside for a while. Luke kept trying to show off to Julie, and as I tried to distract myself, I saw Willie talking to Carrie in the hallway. Willie didn’t speak while I was looking, it was only Carrie. She was smiling at him and was speaking very softly, different from her usual exclaiming. She gave him a quick pat on the shoulder before hurrying away. 

“Alex,” Julie called, “Reggie’s out, we can go.” 

Reggie was standing next to Luke, showing him his new Star Wars shirt. We decided we were going to practice a new song that Julie and Luke had written last weekend. Luke was sure that this song would be a hit, I wasn’t so sure. It’s not that it was a bad song, not at all, but it just seemed like we had better ones. I feel bad for thinking that, but I just prefer the other ones that Julie had written. None of those had been a love song, but this one was. And Julie still hadn’t gotten the hint that Luke was in complete love with her after he had written this love song with her, it was truly frustrating. Anyways, we made it quick to the music room, Luke and Reggie racing to make it there first. We’d placed our stuff there last night, which meant that we had claimed it already but Reggie still insisted on being there first so that no one else would take it. 

“Alright,” Julie yelled after we were all situated, “Let’s start!” 

———————

The practice had gone well, for about 5 minutes until I saw someone at the doorway. All the doors in our school have little windows so we can see inside or outside of them, not a good idea if there is a danger inside the school, but in this case it was a lesser danger. It was Willie. He was looking inside of the room in awe, his eyes toured all around. Suddenly, we made eye contact. Their eyes sparkled in the light of the hallway. I was so focused on Willie that I accidentally hit the symbol. Julie stopped singing and yelled, “Again, from the top!” By the time I looked back up again, Willie was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I’d appreciate it if you could leave a kudos, comment or share. I’ll probably be writing in Alex’s POV for the next 2 chapters, just so you know. Okay, bye!

**Author's Note:**

> that was “long”. Thanks for reading! Leave a kudos or comment or share, or do all of them! Until next time! ~ Kat


End file.
